Sir — The West Indies batsman, Chris Gayle, must be congratulated for breaking the long-standing record of the Pakistani cricketer, Shahid Afridi, of the highest number of sixes in international cricket. He did so in West Indies’s first one-day international against England in Barbados. He now has 477 sixes across formats, while Afridi has 476. Moreover, Gayle achieved this feat in his 444th match while Afridi did so in 524 games. Gayle is the kind of player who chips away at his opponents’ chance to win the longer he stays at the crease. One hopes that he plays international cricket for many years to come.

Muhammad Zaid,
Ramanagara, Karnataka

Right step

Sir — It is heartening that the Calcutta High Court allowed a woman in her 29th week of pregnancy to get an abortion, given that signs of Down Syndrome were detected in the foetus (“Nod to abort Down Syndrome foetus”, Feb 19). The verdict set aside the ruling of a trial court which had rejected the woman’s plea for abortion on the grounds that the procedure at this stage of the pregnancy may be harmful for the woman.

It is high time the government reviewed the law that prohibits the termination of pregnancy after 20 weeks. Doctors believe that with the advancement of technology, medical complications that may arise from such late terminations can be handled. They have also said that 20 weeks is not sufficient time for them to confirm a foetus’s abnormalities, and that the deadline for termination of the pregnancy can easily be extended beyond 20 weeks.

If a pregnant woman feels that she is not mentally prepared to give birth to and take care of a child with incurable medical problems, she should have the right to terminate her pregnancy even at a later stage. After all, it is, in most cases, primarily the mother who has to deal with the challenges that come along with such situations. Moreover, raising a child with special needs involves immense medical expenditure, something that most women can ill-afford.

Kiran Agarwal,
Calcutta

Sir — The division bench of the Calcutta High Court has passed an epoch-making order allowing a homemaker to abort her foetus with signs of Down Syndrome in the 29th week of her pregnancy. Earlier, a trial court had turned down the woman’s plea for abortion on the basis of the opinion of a medical board at the Seth Sukhlal Karnani Memorial Hospital. The board observed that the foetus was already at a stage where it would be “born alive”, and abortion at that stage might be a risky proposition for the mother.

It seems that the medical board failed to look at the problem from all perspectives. The high court has rightly observed that every mother and her child have the right to live with dignity. A mere ‘existence’ is not enough. A child allowed to come into this world in spite of worrying signs of illness having been detected during the pregnancy will suffer relentlessly in the course of his life from health problems. The parents will also have to undergo mental agony and anxieties, apart from having to bear unmanageable financial expenditure for the child’s life-long treatment. In view of this, the ruling of the division bench is pragmatic and realistic, and must be welcomed. It has helped avoid a situation in which a number of people would have suffered tremendously.

Tapash Chatterjee,
Calcutta

BJP leader and governor of Meghalaya Tathagata Roy has equated all Kashmiris with terrorists who carry out dastardly acts such as the Pulwama attack Telegraph file picture

Careless words

Sir — In a shameful tweet, the former Bharatiya Janata Party leader and present governor of Meghalaya, Tathagata Roy, supported a retired army officer’s view that the rest of India should “boycott everything Kashmiri”. The tweet came soon after the recent terror attack in Pulwama, in which more than 40 jawans belonging to the Central Reserve Police Force were killed in a suicide bombing.

Roy’s obnoxious remarks render him thoroughly unfit for any sort of government service, especially a high constitutional office like that of the governor of a state. Roy has equated all Kashmiris with terrorists who carry out such dastardly acts. It is this kind of fanning of communal hatred that has resulted in Kashmiris being attacked by Hindutva mobs in various corners of the country. It makes a mockery of the idea of national integration, and stokes the fire of hate at a time when India is considering military retaliation against Pakistan.

Roy has made communally-tinged remarks in the past as well. After this comment, though, the Centre must consider removing him from his gubernatorial post.

Khokan Das,
Calcutta

Sir — The Meghalaya governor, Tathagata Roy, has once again tarred the constitutional office he holds by supporting a call to “boycott everything Kashmiri”. This boycott, apparently, involves not visiting Kashmir and the Amarnath shrine for two years, and is being called for at a time when reports about the growing violence and harassment faced by Kashmiri students and traders across northern India are pouring in. It ill behoves someone holding such a high office to express such divisive views. A governor must be impartial and just in his comments and actions.

S.S. Paul,
Nadia